Hero
by Jazbez
Summary: Not every superhero has to be super-powered, not every alien has to care about humanity more than we do, and more importantly not every hero has to dress in flashy spandex and tights. A hero can be powerless, can care more about others than themselves, and while they may be dressed in a uniform, it does not necessarily have to be flashy. Recommend Skillet's "Hero" while reading


**AN: Not every superhero has to be super-powered not every alien has to care about humanity more than we do, and more importantly not every hero has to dress in flashy spandex and tights. A hero can be powerless, can care more about others than themselves, and while they may be dressed in a uniform, it does not necessarily have to be flashy.**

**Now then this story is about Emilia Anderson, a twenty-five year old woman who is a member of the Central City Fire Department (CCFD), and one of her most fateful days on the job. Unknowingly she will save a future hero. During this story I was listening to "Hero" by Skillet so the story is inspired by the song, even though the setting of the story is before 2009, the song's release.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice or "Hero", they are owned by their respective owners.**  
_

_**October 10th, 2003**_

It was just another morning in Central, the seemingly perfect skies in the early morning, early shift workers outside going to work and late shift workers heading home to rest, the slight snoring sounds coming from my neighbors apartment. And of course the damn alarm clock...

"I'm up, I'm up. Why I don't destroy you I have no idea." I mumbled, my hands pressing into the pillow over my head to try and block out the alarm. After a 'gentle' slam on the alarm to turn it off I slowly rose out of the bed, briefly pausing to scratch Meowth's ear to get a purr from him, and dragged myself to the apartment's kitchen for coffee. I still claim that naming him that was a good idea at the time, even if I was eighteen at the time I still thought a Pokemon reference was a good idea for naming a tabby. "I wonder what a good name for a Tuxedo cat would be? I'm guessing Cobblepot, though would I want to have a villain for a pet?" I thought out as I slowly drank my coffee and got ready for the day, "Why do I always think these things early in the morning? That's a better question."

About an hour later I arrived at the station, quickly heading to the locker rooms to change into the pants and undershirt we were required to wear. After changing I left the locker room and headed to the "On Call" area, sitting down for the moment in one of the chairs and murmuring to myself once again.

"Com'n Emilia, you're retiring in one more week. No trouble for you in one week and you're golden." I murmured, a slight smile tugging my lips as I said this, before letting out a small gasp as I felt a large hand clamp down on my hair, ruffling it.

"You've been saying the same thing every morning for three years Em. You're nowhere close to retiring, you're only what, twenty-three? Twenty-four?" The man said as he came into my point of view, sitting down in the chair opposite of mine.

"I'm twenty-five Dave, you know that." I said with a slight frown towards the middle-aged man as I tried to fix my ruffled hair. "You know how much I hate it when you ruffle my hair."

"Em, there's barely anything to ruffle with that haircut you have." Dave said with another small chuckle. "What is it you kids call it? A fairy cut?"

"It's called a pixie cut for your information." I said as I rubbed the back of my head, trying to fix it somewhat. "And I think it looks good with my red hair thank-you-very-much. How would you like it if someone came up to you and started messing with that thing you call a mustache, huh?" I asked as I nodded towards the hair in question.

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with my mustache." Dave said defensively, poking it as he talked, as if to prove a point.  
"You look like a walrus with it on your face." I joked, picturing Dave with the beady eyes and the tusks.

"Hmph, I'll let you know Leslie loves my mustache." Dave grumbled.

"She's your wife, she's supposed to love it. That or lie about it." I responded with a chuckle, laughing a little as I heard Dave's defeated sigh.

A few minutes later Dave asked me, "Why is it you tell yourself you're retiring next week everyday you come to work?"

A smile grew on my face as I started to explain it to him, "You see, it's a matter of jinxing myself. In TV and the movies..."  
_

It was a few hours later and Dave and I were tending to the fire-engines, telling stories as we normally do as we work as a means to entertain ourselves. After one particularly embarrassing story on Dave's part, I turned to him with surprise and exasperation on my face, "How the hell did you set your garbage can on fire? It's a mystery how Leslie can put up with you some days."

"Hey, I'm just as confused with the whole thing as you are." Dave responded, hands in the air in mock surrender. "Anyways, when are you planning to start dating a guy. A nice girl like you shouldn't have so much trouble finding a man. In fact, I can see the way Jim looks at you whenever you come to work."

"You know I don't like Jim or anyone like that. I'm just not interested in dating a man at the moment." I said while waving him off, 'Now Sarah on the other hand...' I thought as I looked towards the girl at the dispatcher's desk in the other room.

Just then, the station's broadcasting system turned on and gave a small alert to the main desks, while all we heard was an alarm going off in the rest of the building. Giving each other a quick look, Dave and I raced off to change into the rest of our uniforms and to grab our gear and equipment before racing back to our fire-engine. Truth be told, I've always had mixed reactions to our firefighter uniforms, it's always been either a sign of hope to me or a sign of danger at the same time. That and I always got the suit that seems a little bit too tight for me.

As Dave and I met, we both entered into the front of the engine before getting the rest of the dispatch of where we're supposed to go. With Dave taking the wheel, I took the radio and told Dave where the destination.

"It sounds like we have to go the orphanage downtown, Dave. You know where that is right?" I asked him, all joking aside.

"The orphanage?" Dave asked me, his eyes wide at the destination. "Yah, I know how to get there. Do we know if it was intentional, or was it accidental?" Dave asked.

"We don't know. I mean who would intentionally set an orphanage on fire?" I asked Dave incredulously, "The only ones that seem bad enough to try and do that are the Rogues that the Flash fights all the time. But everyone knows they have a no kill policy, that and they aren't allowed to harm women or kids."

"I would hope so, I find it kind of reassuring that the villains here at least have morals. Can you imagine ever living in Gotham or Bludhaven? That would be terrible." Dave responded back to me. "What's the status of the fire? Are the kids out?" He asked.

"Dispatch said the fire started about midway up the building. The lower floors are fully evacuated and the caretakers are still evacuating the upper levels. The caretakers are afraid that the structure of the building will start to break however, so we have to get there in a hurry." I informed Dave, before looking straight ahead again.  
_

As Dave pulled the engine over, I could see the full intensity of the fire going on inside. It looked as if the majority of the middle levels were engulfed in flames as smoke was billowing out of the windows and small tongues of flame licked the window frames, with only the northern edge of the building not being affected by the fire at the moment. To couple these facts, the southern side of the building was letting off one or two ominous groans. Out on the lawn of the orphanage was a small herd of children and caretakers, one of which was heading towards me as Dave and I exited the front, Dave going off to ready the firehouse with the others.

As the woman came towards me she exclaimed, "We're missing one child!" Causing me to stop cold.

"Do you have any idea where they might be?" I asked quickly, not wanting to waste any time.

"It's Wally, he's probably trapped in the second-to-top floor! That's where his room is, its on the south side of the building!" She exclaimed, breathing deeply in an attempt to calm herself.

"Understood." I told the woman, "If the others ask where I am, could you tell them I'm inside?" I asked quickly as I put my mask on and my helmet's visor down. As a precaution I took the fire axe near the front of the engine as well.

"Yes, yes, I will! Please hurry!" The woman exclaimed as I trudged as quickly as I could towards the northern part of the building, my heavy equipment and suit weighing me down.

As I entered the building I called in a request to dispatch, "Dispatch, this is Firefighter Anderson, come in."

{"This is dispatch, what is it you need?} I heard the dispatcher tell me, assuming it was Sarah. "Can you tell my engine at the orphanage to set up the ladder as far as they can up the side of the southern side of the building? We have a child stuck on one of the upper floors and I'm heading up there as fast as I can." {"Understood, good luck. Dispatch out."}

As I got higher up, the smoke began to increase as it draped the top of the ceilings. I was quickly losing my breath as the amount of smoke began to increase, and to make matters worse, my body was tiring down due to the heavy equipment. In the middle levels of the building I could clearly see fires draping the hallways near the staircase, driving me to go faster to reach the kid. As I got to the second-to-last floor, I began searching the hallways for where the kid's room was supposed to be.

About a quarter of the way through my search I found a lone door that didn't appear to be opened. I attempted to open the door only to find it would not open, even though I tried to knock it down. After a quick yell of "Watch Out!" I took the fire axe I had with me and began to chop and hack away the hinges of the door. After breaking off the hinges of the door, I entered the doorway and began to search the room.

Huddled against the wall was a small child, probably around eight or nine, with his clothes and hair covered partially with soot from the fire. As I neared closer I saw his vibrant red hair and green eyes, and yet the child began to scoot farther and farther away as I approached. Believing his fright was because of my appearance, I took off my helmet and mask to assure the child it was okay. "It's alright Wally, I'm not here to hurt you. I'm here to help you, redheads have to stick together." I said to the child, motioning him to come closer.

As he finally came to me I put my mask and helmet over him for protection, and we headed back to the hallway. "It's okay, we're going to head down a floor or two to get to the ladder for you. Do you understand?" After getting a nod from Wally I picked him up and headed to the stairs.

As we got to the floor below, I carried the kid to the southern side of the building to a window. Looking out the window I saw Dave on the ladder reaching towards me and Wally. I quickly gave Wally to Dave before saying to him, "It's too high for me, I'm going to go down a few more flights to try and get to an easier exit point." Seeing Dave nod, I quickly got away from the window and back to the hallway.

Before making it to the stairs though I heard the floor above me give a loud groan before parts of the ceiling began to fall over me. After a minute I opened my eyes and felt an immense pain. Looking at my feet I saw what appeared to be a large fallen support on top of my legs and a piece of debris had pinned my right arm to the ground. Unable to shake the debris off of me, I slowly began to black out form both the pain and exhaustion.  
_

As I slowly regained consciousness, I noted the different area around me. The room I was in was a stark white with a blinded window next to a door. Regaining more of my senses I could see an assortment of instruments around me, the main one giving off it was a heart monitor, I knew I was in a hospital, and it was then that I noticed the casts and bandages that adorned my body. My legs were both set in casts and my right arm was set in a lighter cast, with a bandage wrapping covering my lower torso.

As I studied my casts and bandages, I heard the door to the room open. Looking to the source of the noise, I saw a white coated doctor come in. "Ah, Miss Anderson." The doctor said, a relieved smile adorning his older face, "We were worried for a moment.""How did I get out?" I croaked, surprised just at how weak my voice sounded at the moment.

"A minute after you were caught under the collapsed ceiling, Flash appeared on the scene. After hearing that a firefighter was thought to have been trapped inside, he rushed in and found you. After quickly removing you from the wreckage he rushed you here for immediate treatment. You were lucky," The doctor continued, "You had inhaled a large amount of ash and soot from the debris, causing you breathing to become irregular. As well as that, your legs were heavily broken from the support and your arm was fractured and burnt, the same as your abdomen there." He finished, nodding towards my various injuries as they were mentioned.

After a few seconds to cope with the information I got, I asked him, "What about that kid that I rescued? How is he doing?"

Surprised by the change of topic, the doctor's eyes widened before responding, "He's doing fine. He was brought here soon after you were. He was treated for similar soot problems as you were as well as an extensive burn that covered the upper portion of his left arm."

Letting out a relieved sigh, I thanked the doctor before falling asleep again.  
_

_**November 20th, 200**__**9**_

"You have got to be kidding me!" I rasped out angrily, my voice hoarse with dehydration. Keystone City had a major fire in one of the department buildings in the financial district of the city, and the fire stations of nearby Central City were called in as well to maintain the blaze. Partway through the blaze, I had entered into the building with other firefighters to search for anyone still trapped inside.

Partway through the search, the ceiling shuddered and parts of the ceiling fell down to the area below. Now separated from the others by piles of debris, I was stuck alone in a burning building. Again.

Just as I was about to call into dispatch for help, I felt arms grab around me. A second later I was outside the building. Looking behind me, I saw the yellow and red uniform of Kid Flash before me. "Do you need anything?" He asked quickly.

Feeling the dryness of my throat, I motioned to my mouth repeatedly with my hands while croaking, "Wa... Wat..."

Catching on, the sidekick asked, "Water?" only to rush away and get some as I nodded my head. A second later he appeared again with a water bottle held out to me. As I took off my helmet and mask, I saw the boy's eyes widen slightly when he saw my face.  
After I downed the entire bottle to ease the pain in my throat, I croaked out, "Thanks for the save."

Nodding his head and giving a smile as he rubbed his left arm, the boy said, "Redheads have to stick together." To me, as if it was an inside joke.

After a few seconds of thought, I remembered what I had said to the small boy six years ago, and a knowing smile graced my face. Giving the boy a small swat on his leg, I croaked out, "Get going, you crazy kid..." A smile still on my face as I saw him race back into the building, this time with a smile on his face.

_**Warm Fuzzy Ending has a Warm Fuzzy Ending :3**_


End file.
